Now that I’ve had the opportunity to play with the system a bit more, I’m reviewing HiveLive from a more informed perspective.

If I was working on a new center that was going to include the customer in my community, HiveLive would be one of the first products I’d take a look at.  The question that people will ask is why?

• Simplicity is the first reason:  There are other products out there that could do aspects of this (Mantis as a bug tracker, vBulletin as a bulletin board system, Wordpress for Blogs), but I don’t know many (any?) that do all in one combined swoop.Some very strong reasons:
• Customer interaction is usually complex and time consuming: In a call center, people call in, agents document, agents escalate, management reviews, management ships off to other management, other management reviews, and, sometime down the line, a decision is made.  That feedback is never sent back to the customer and it takes forever.  With a system such as HiveLive’s feature rating system (see their demo / overview), the customers can help drive the changes.  Management can still veto the modifications, but gathering market research on what your users want is easy.
• Community and Employee discussions: “As a contact center solution provider, our employee base is the most critical component of our success, so community and culture are key,” said David Parkhurst, director of client operations at Alpine Access. “Since all of our agents work remotely, they don’t have the opportunity to connect with their colleagues in the same way they would in a traditional office environment. HiveLive’s LiveConnect Community Platform provides us with a solution that cultivates innovation and collective insight for improved customer service.”(HiveLive Powers Alpine Access Online Community For Its Virtual Workforce)
• Open communication: By comminicating with customers, you can drive market research, word of mouth advertising, and a more effective “vibe”.  Marketing in the 21st century is rarely one way — customers will give feedback in some fashion.  It’d be better to be able to harness this energy and put it to use than to let it fizzle out there. 

Many of these have to do with the marketing side. 

Support services can be handled in a similar way.  Customers that see a problem they’ve faced before in the past will, if they feel part of the company’s community, likely chip in and help respond to a question.  Blogs and forums can be used to communicate large scale changes, firmware upgrades, version modifications, and feature implementations.

Customer service is simply communication driven. Make sure that your customers know what’s happening and they’ll be much more satisfied with the answer. Be polite, responsive and responsible.  Help them understand how the company they’re working with is trying to solve their problem.

All in all, I still stick with my initial comment about the product: “Wow”.

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